A Borderline Personality Disorder Story.

Christmas & ‘The Holidays’.

I cannot remember the last time that I was this excited about the run up to Christmas. I cannot wait to spend time with friends and family, and feel so excited about the prospect of doing festive things and looking forward to the future and being so thankful to everyone in my life.

Before now, my relationship with this time of year has been difficult at best. Complex relationships, friendships and the relationship I’ve had with my feelings about them have clouded my view of this time of year.

There are the kind of challenges that everyone faces – what am I going to BUY for this person, or that person. How can I possibly buy/afford/find the perfect present that will adequately express how much I value this person?

Occasionally, I found that I managed to find something that seemed to tick all the boxes. Usually it was during a spending spree in resulted in a lot of impulsive decisions and probably a few choice purchases for myself. Come the following morning, I’d feel a heavy sort of guilt about it. Not only do NONE of those presents feel ‘right’ any more, but I’d lessened the value of them by spending money on myself in the same breath. (Usually money I ‘don’t have’ and therefore shouldn’t have spent on me.) To make matters worse, I would usually dig myself into a hole of belief that because I couldn’t find the perfect present, I therefore could not possibly value that person as much as I should. Which started a spiral of negativity.

I have no idea what has changed this year – all I know, and all I am going to take away from this feeling is that is just has changed. I want to put up Christmas decorations, and I want to spend good quality time with my family and friends. The people I love, because I love them, and I know that I can show that by being with them and around them!

For a while, even just a few days ago I had bad feelings about the run up to this time of year, but this evening I’ve spent the last 2 hours listening to some uplifting podcasts on mental health thanks to a link from a friend and sat writing my Christmas Cards. I have a lot of friends who live abroad and it dawned on me earlier today that in three weeks today, it’ll all be over. (At least the Christmas part.) It’s definitely put me in a festive mood, and brightened my outlook on a lot of things drastically.

Knowing that I can’t afford to perhaps buy the things I WANT to buy for people is not as depressing a feeling anymore. I’ve decided that I am going to do what I CAN do, and the rest will work itself out. Positivity is always productive, and I want to keep on this little train line and choo choo my way all the way through the next four weeks.